After Illinois/tsio today, who stands between M and a B1G title?

Illinois handled tsio quite easily. Who do you feel is the biggest challenge Michigan will face in the BIG this season? Most seem to think IU, but IMHO, the Illini or Minnesota may be the biggest roadblock.

Mod edit: Changed the title to make the contents more clear (the game thread is below). Also a friendly reminder that anything involving Big Ten teams or future opponents is not off topic. JGB.

Still Indiana. Illinois beat Ohio State handily, yes, but their offense wasn't that impressive and they rely too much on the three. They have a bad loss to Purdue already as well. I think we can handle them.

Minnesota scares me and is a good team, but we only play them once and it's early enough in the season we can work around a loss.

Did you watch the game? OSU got man-handled inside and if it weren't for garbage minutes, Deshaun Thomas would have made no presence at all. Illinois even out-rebounded the Buckeyes today.

Before this game, I would have agreed with you, but if Illinois can play that way inside, they are going to be VERY tough to beat, even if they are having an off shooting day (which they certainly didn't have today).

Yeah I did. The game win was obviously a good win for Illinois, but at the same time that game said more to me about OSU than Illinois.

Illinois's offense wasn't overly impressive. They missed a decent amount of open shots, and made a ton of late clock 3 point or long 2 chuck ups that you can't expect them to make on a consistent basis.

They did dominate inside, but that probably says more about OSU than Illinois once again. All OSU has inside are Ravenel and Williams, 2 meh players. In their previous 3 games, which included a game against Auburn, Illinois was out rebounded by 41. We are one of the best rebounding teams in the country, against us I would be surprised if they dominated inside.

And I think you're overdoing how much they shut down Thomas. He didn't have his greatest game, yes, but he still had 24 points, and 20 with over 8 left in the second, so it was not all garbage time.

I think Illinois is good, but this game just showed me more how thin OSU is and their lack of O outside Thomas. Illinois is good, but I think us and Indiana are significantly more talented, and we should beat them.

This year Michigan has attempted 297 3's out of 818 total shots, or 36% of the shots. That's higher than the average team, but not by much, and down significantly down from the 44% from last year.

Illinois on the other hand, has 384 attempted 3's out of 899 shots, or a 43% clip. Significantly higher than our clip this year, basically our team from last year. Illinois also shoots 37% from three compared to our 42%, so we're more efficient than them this year, and our team last year.

You know Bacari will remind this team who the Illini coach coached last year. The biggest challenge is IU. Winning at Assembly Hall is tough, and would be a huge win. They don't defend as well as we do so we definitely have a shot.

It's one game. Some teams have bad games, other teams have really good games. Illinois lost on the road at Purdue. OSU's played Kansas and Duke tough. IMO, both are good teams. If UM shows up with their C game and Illinois/OSU show up with their A game, UM will probably lose.

Indiana's defense is much better than last year, and better than ours, unfortunately. I still like us on a neutral court, but we're not getting any calls (ever) in Bloomington, so they'll be able to mug us at will, while we'll spend the game in foul trouble with their guys shooting 1 and 1s early in both halves.

IU obviously because they're the one team in the conference that can really match our offense output (and one of the best offenses in the nation for that matter). Second I would put OSU and MSU. Yes, there are better teams in the B1G right now, but I don't think that any other team will play us with as much intensity as those two. And both of those teams still have enough talent and/or coaching to beat us.

Honestly, the conference is so deep right now that no matter how good you are a loss against teams not named N'western, Penn State or Nebraska isn't even really that much of an upset. I think we're one of the top 2 teams but there isn't *that* much drop-off after us and IU and we are gonna have to fight tooth and nail against every game against the top 7 teams in the conference.

I'm starting to worry a bit that we haven't really been tested yet. So, it might be a little more open than it currently appears. I mean, not to be too negative - but who have we really beaten? NC State? Kstate? those are prolly the best wins on our record. Pitt is looking more and more like a middle of the rd team at best. None of the above are really marquee matchups to my mind.

Don't get me wrong, I love the way we're playing and Trey is on another planet. But ultimately I don't think we'll have a really good idea where we stand relative to the rest of the conf for at least another 2-3 weeks. Just so many good teams this year.

My point exactly... As good as we've looked, I just can't help but feel it's been against subpar competition. I hope to be proven wrong in the next few weeks. But until that happens, I'm thinking we're probably overrated.

This conference is ridiculously deep. I think against any school that isn't Penn State, Northwestern or Nebraska we're going to have to grind out each win. Indiana is especially going to be very tough in the road.

I'd say that right now the top challengers are Indiana, Minny and Illinois. I'm surprised the last two have looked as good as they have. I think Michigan has a great chance to win a consecutive conference title, but my worry is that the team really hasn't been tested yet. Maybe the toughest team we've played thus far is NC State. We're not going to know if we truly deserve a #2 ranking for another few weeks.

fair. Although being one of only three undefeated teams even given preconference schedules means something, the teams we have beaten haven't shown themselves to be top of the heap, so I think the jury is still out if we're great or just really good, which I guess isn't a terrible problem to have.

Using the Sagarin Predictor numbers to project the next 12 games, which should undoubtedly be the toughest stretch, would actually bear out the estimates of those who believe that Indiana and Minnesota would be the biggest obstacles. Of these twelve games, based on the ratings published just yesterday, we would be underdogs at Minnesota and at Indiana, as well as at Ohio State. By contrast, we are predicted to be 11 point favorites tomorrow and 22 point favorites against Nebraska.

There's no game here that we're out of statistically (we're just that good, in my opinion), and it seems to me that the Big Ten is deep enough that almost anyone could give anyone else fits at least for a while in any game. The road games will certainly not be easy in this stretch.

even splitting those games gives UM a good shot. It's going to be a biatch to win on the road this year. Any wins you can get on the road against Minny, OSU, MSU, Illinois and Indiana is going to be huge.

I have drunk the koolaid, and truly believe that Michigan is a significant cut above everyone else in the Big 10 this year.

The question shouldn't be "who," but "what stands in the way of Michigan and a Big 10 Championship?" The only answer is injury or some similar tragedy. I will bet money: if Michigan stays healthy, (including the return of Horford,) they will win the Big 10 as stand alone champions.

This has been discussed elsewhere, but I would credit this to:

Coaching. Beilein has trained them up oh so well.

Leadership. As good as Burke has been, his leadership, along with Hardaway's, and Morgan's, is key. The set the tone for the rest of the team.

Balance. Bigs? Check. PG? Check. SG? Check? Wings? Check. Think about it: our first seven (Burke, Hardaway, Stauskas, Robinson, Morgan, McGary, and LeVert) are all scoring threats. No one can cheat on any of them. It isn't until you get to Albrecht, Bielfeldt, and Horford that scoring goes down. What this means is that a couple out of these seven could have an off night, and you'd just shift elsehwere. I haven't checked, but I think that almost everyone above could score more than 20 in a game, if they had the hot hand. I don't believe Indiana will be able to defend them.

Unselfishness. I have heard multiple players say, "let the game come to you." This is what allows Burke to score no points in a half and get 10 assists. It allows Stauskas to pass, and Hardaway to not force bad shots.

Until I see otherwise, I think this team could beat the Fab 5. I don't believe they have the same talent level, but I believe they play better as a team, get less flustered, are more disciplined, and have a better attitude. Teams with more NBA talent (Kentucky?) are not going to beat Michigan this year.

There's a lot of basketball to be played yet. A team can't win the Big Ten Championship in January or Febuary, but it certainly can lose it. I want to see this team peak at NCAA Tournament time. If they are playing 5-on-5, as opposed to a dreaded 5-on-8 matchup against Duke, they can beat anyone. Unfortunately, any team in the Big Ten can spring an upset at any time, too.

As long as the Wolverines can grab a 1, 2, or 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, they will have a great chance to make the Final Four. To me, that is what really matters.

I agree its way to early to be dreaming of winning the B1G. I agree UM is looking to be the cream of the crop or at worst in the top 2, and I believe the national media is under-appreciating them thus far. But it's just a matter of time until someone beats them and in this conference outside the bottom 2-3 teams there's no shame in that.

Once UM does lose I think the national media will hound them because they don't think UM is that good and they will be justified in their beliefs. That said the only thing UM can do is stay focused and win. Good things come to those who persevere.

Illinois is for real.

IU is still very good and very dangerous. Can we match up inside?

TSIO can still give us fits on a good day.

Minnesota looks to be for real.

MSU will likely not beat us but wouldn't surprise me if they snag one. They still have talent.

Outside these 5 teams I don't see anyone beating UM, but on an off-day anything can happen.

Isn't UM ranked second in the country?? I could understand that comment if they were ranked 7th, 8th, etc, but the media has them second. The announcers during the games I've seen are usually gushing over how solid UM looks.

don't take anything the wrong way, nobody is replying to the comment above. I got distracted and didn't hit the cave button on a guy who needed it, and these replies were to a questionably intelligent assessment of Michigan's roster.

HALOL at anyone that thinks Illinois will contend for the big ten title. They will have some unexpected wins, but will not be consistent enough over the course of the season. IU will be the biggest threat with Minny, MSU, and OSU probably next in that order.